Albums of the Year - 50 to 41

50. Irreversible Entanglements - Open The Gate

Free jazz groove

49. TV Priest - Uppers

Terse post-punk

48. The Pop Group - Y in Dub

Dennis Bovell remix

47. Monolord - Your Time To Shine

Fuzzed haunting doom

46. Mono - Pilgrimage Of The Soul

Mesmerising post-rock

45. Fere - Visceral

Experimental punk hardcore

 

44. X'ed Out - We All Do Wrong

Noise rock with bursts of brass

43. Duel - In Carne Persona

Heavy psych stoner

42. God Damn - Coward

Hardcore stoner metal

41. Uranus Space Club - Another Planet, Another Love

Funk jazz space rock

Black Spell - The Purple Skull

                           Black Spell play a superb mix of doom-tainted sludge that

threatens to obliterate everything in its path. Despairing, bleak

vocals echo out a litany of fury that are always fighting to be

heard above the fat, heavy guitar tones that are crashing out

gargantuan riffs.

 

This album is made up of  tracks that take you to a dark swamp,

cut your eyes with razors and leave you to slowly sink into the mire.

Passages within the songs do pick up the pace at times before descending

back into the thick, bad-drug vibe that pervades the Black Spell sound.

 

The crowning glory as far as I am concerned, are the outrageously

fuzzed guitar solos that forge the psychedelic with the heavy - kinda

like Vanilla Fudge crossed with Electric Wizard. At times I find this

genre sometimes suffers from a generic template but in my eyes,

Black Spell have produced one of the Doom albums of the year.

Released on Forbidden Place Records.

                                

Stomatopod - Competing With Hindsight

Stomatopod play the sort of music that sounds one chorus 

 away from musically exploding into chaos but somehow they 

manage to keep things flowing into nagging songs that lodge 

into your brain.

Straddling the void between noise/art/punk/math, these songs are full of

spastic rhythms, staccato time changes and sprawling passages that wind

up as aggressive bursts of frustration.

The sound has a lot of empty space which gives the Tom Verlaine type

soloing room to explore before getting trashed into basic riffs. This is

very good shit ......... the vocals veers between plantive, demented,

crooning and shouting which in this day and age of roared, aggressive

shouting manages to bring a lot more tension into proceedings.

Sounding like Sonic Youths bratty younger brothers, Stomatopod

also have the same knack for inventing a new musical language that you

don't quite get but want to understand better. Oh yeah and it is mixed

and recorded by Steve Albini.

Haaz - Andra

 

Haaz play noise rock/post-hardcore - their own tag

of "indie noise rock" does not do justice to the explosion of power,

aggression and raw slabs of sonic destruction that emerge when

the play button is pressed.

 

Dark rumbling bass which sounds like it is played through a

distortion pedal or just turned up fucking loud mixes with the

pounding drums to produce the platform from which the fuzzed up,

on the edge-of-constant-feedback guitars can riff off. Ah man,

the riffs in the songs are groove ridden monsters that make me want

to break things while laughing like a maniac. Such evil joy and

wanton glee are in the tunes - they lodge deep in your brain and

make other music seem dull and insipid.

 

Crooning, shouting, yelling - the vocals sound like David Yow

performing under the influence of un-tested drugs, ranting about

self loathing with the world and maybe oneself.

 

The entire sound is deep, sludgey but with the uncomplicated

song passages that contains all I love about noise rock. So

much denseness is contained in these 10 tracks that when this

album stops, the silence seems almost deafening.

Cerce - Cowboy

 

                    

Razor clear vocals from Becca, sludge/hardcore riffs and fuzzed

out guitars that sound like they are on verge of constant

feedback is the touchstone from which Cerce inflict on

you. Think Jesus Lizard jamming with the Melvins

and you will begin to see the warped path

which you are required to walk through when

the music starts.

This is noise-rock distilled through a vortex of insanity
and chaos that only the strong will emerge from.
Quicksilver guitar solos and riffs are sprayed over
the tracks with reckless abandon but always with a
thrilling payoff - to misquote - " It's rock Jim but
not as we know it"!

The Pop Group - Y In Dub

 The classic album “Y” was a post-punk taster of what 

could be done with stripped down sounds and rhythm. 

Add dub master Dennis Bovell to the mix and a thing 

of strange beauty was born. 40 years later and 

Bovell has returned, tearing the songs apart and 

putting them back together like a mutant creation 

coming to life. If you have not played this album 

for a while, jump aboard this head fuck and get 

taken to the outer reaches of dub.

X'ed Out - We All Do Wrong

 

X’ed Out play fast and hard but with a restraint that 

stops it being utter chaos. Tautly wound and intense, 

the songs deliver with style and atmosphere, the 

guitars judder and snake around the riffs - it’s 

a heavy mix but thankfully, the noise rock sensibilities 

mean that the band know that there is so much more 

than just screaming and playing fast. 

 

Straddling the void between noise/art/punk/hardcore, these 

songs are full of spastic rhythms, staccato time changes and sprawling 

passages that wind up as aggressive bursts of frustration. 

 

The rhythm section have the technical chops to pull off 

the dizzying time tempos and staccato song structures that 

make this sort of thing so thrilling but still have a looseness 

that sounds like a band playing on the edge of chaos. 

 

With a powerful production that really seems to capture a live 

sound, X’ed Out are full of aggression and drive, seemingly 

about to collapse into chaotic noise but the riffs and vocals keep 

the song structures going.

 

These are some longer tracks giving the guitars, bass

and horn sections room to evolve within their own

melodic passages.

 

Don't be fooled into thinking that this is backgound

music ...... play this loud and proud, let the whole

experience wash over you.

Jointhugger - Surrounded By Vultures

Fere - Visceral

There is a definite cinematic feel to proceeding which will be 

rewarded by playing as a whole, rather than individual tracks. 

Unusual soundscapes come to life where gentle guitars mix with

 blast beat drums and heavy riffs. 

The atmospherics are helped by 

moments of dreamlike calm but not not fear, slow echoed drums 

morph into aggressive driving beats from which the guitars 

can surge over the top, giving plenty of opportunities for feet stomping. 

In an over-saturated genre, it can be hard to make your mark 

but this band pull it off. Don't be fooled into thinking that this is 

background music ...... play this loud and proud, 

let the whole experience wash over you.

Released by Raging Planer Records on Nov 15th 2012

Iron Lizards - Hungry For Action

 

Like the bastard son of Zeke and Electric Frankenstein, 

Iron Lizards play a hugely addictive mix of garage punk rock’n’roll.

   

Machine gun solos are fired out from fuzz pedals set to kill over 

insanely catchy but primitive riffs. Hey droogies, bang your heads up 

and down to these killer tunes which make you want to break things, 

drink heavily or just shout in strangers faces about the new band 

you have just heard! Get hip to the new priests of boogie, smell the 

stench of amps turned up to 10 and worship at the altar of “fuck you!”. 

This is high on my album of the year list.